Space View of Natural Gas Flaring Darkened by Budget Woes
New satellite technology offers a clearer view of the growing natural gas flaring problem. But the U.S. budget mess has slowed the effort to measure this source of energy waste and pollution.
The World Bank-led industry-government coalition, the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, was due last spring to release a report on 2012 flaring numbers, figures certain to be affected by the burgeoning volume of natural gas being flared in the Bakken shale of North Dakota. (See related "Pictures: Bakken Shale Oil Boom Transforms North Dakota" and "The New Oil Landscape.") The report also was expected to be the first to make use of new U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite technology—the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)—to provide higher quality images and better estimates of gas burning.
But the World Bank website now explains that the reporting has been delayed in part because NOAA was hit by
